Dental Practice – Vicarious Liability Claims – A review of three cases:

Whetstone v Medical Protection Society Ltd [2014] EWHC 1024 QB

Barclays Bank PLC v Various Claimants UKSC [2020] – Supreme Court

Ramdhean v (1) Agedo and (2) The Forum Dental Practice Ltd [2020] 1 WLUK 406

Dental Practice owners are increasingly becoming the subject of vicarious liability claims arising from the dental care provided by Associate dentists. This is despite the Associates being engaged on a self-employed basis and them often having their own professional indemnity to cover such claims. The basis of the claim is often that the practice owner is vicariously liable for the acts and omissions of the dentists they employ and/or that they owe a non-delegable duty of care to the patient.

Case Law regarding whether a practice owner is vicarious liable for the acts and omissions of their Associate dentists has over recent years made practice owners more vulnerable to the above types of claim.

The basis of establishing liability in a vicarious liability claim has two stages…